When Yao Ming arrived at the locker room the next morning, Morris Taylor's locker had been cleared. At the same time, the empty locker next to Yao Ming is now Mutombo's name is pasted.

Before the people arrived in the "African Mountains", food and grass were ahead...

Yao Ming changed his clothes and went to warm up first. He now attaches great importance to warm up. Every time he warmed up, he would exercise his body well before starting training.

First, the body stretching, then dribbling and basic shooting training.

After he warmed up, several Rockets' sparring coaches also came to the scene, and Yao Ming was able to start training to compete with the basket.

Standing on the left, a tentative turn turned around. After confirming that the sparring training holding the charge pad behind him had no movement, Yao Ming directly faced the frame, raised it high, and completed the basket through the huge charge pad.

"Good ball, good!"

The next second after Yao Ming scored the goal, a somewhat strange and familiar hoarse cheer sounded. Yao Ming turned his head and it was the Rockets' new player Mutombo who came.

"Hey, man, you came so early, welcome to the Rockets!"

"Man, let's work together in the future."

Yao Ming ran forward and slapped him with a smile.

The two of them had already made a phone call yesterday, and they suddenly became warm when they met.

After chatting for a while, the Rockets also came one after another. It can be seen that these guys had a lot of fun yesterday, and they all looked at it and knew that they didn't sleep well last night.

However, when they saw Mutombo, they greeted the latter enthusiastically.

Mutombo was not as reserved as a newcomer at all. He responded one by one. He had played in this league for 11 years and had experienced several team changes. It was not too difficult for him to integrate into a new team. Especially he had seen some faces more than ten times, so he was not unfamiliar at all.

At about 10:30 in the morning, Mutombo followed General Manager Dawson to hold a press conference. With Mutombo's qualifications, this is something that the Rockets management must do. Moreover, for the management of this team, introducing the best defensive player once was indeed a big deal and deserves a lot of publicity.

After Mutombo left, Tom also arranged the team's training today. Although he still had to play games tonight, because his opponent is the Raptors, he has only won 2 games in 7 games. His strength is a bit different from the Rockets, which currently has 4 wins and 3 losses, so Tom did not take this opponent seriously.

It's not too late to practice the offensive and defensive tactics used in the evening game later.

The main training content arranged today is related to defense.

Therefore, the person who stood on the sidelines today to coordinate the entire training process was Tom Thibaudor, who is Tom's chief assistant coach and the defensive coach of the entire Rockets. He spent a day studying the defensive formation that the Rockets were going to practice today.

This is a defensive formation with Kevin Kato and Yao Ming as the core. The main tactical intention is to block the space through Kevin Kato's position at the basket, and then the outside players are pressed to force the opponent to use the ending method of attacking the basket or taking short and medium distances, using Yao Ming's mobility and his excellent defense ability to interfere with the opponent's attack.

To put it simply, it is the defensive strategy that Yao Ming played on the court with Kevin Cato in the last game against the Pacers...

There is no way, the high mobility Yao Ming showed in that game really impressed him!

Especially the scene of continuously blocking O'Neal Jr. and Tinsley, he saw Yao Ming's potential to become a top defender in the league's interior.

So he copied it, it was wrong, and he drew on the defensive model of the entire Rockets at that time, added some more subtle aspects to create such a defensive system.

When Yao Ming was practicing with the team, he also realized that Thibodeau's arrangement was exactly the division of labor between him and Kevin Cato on the court when playing against the Pacers, which immediately made him feel a little more happy - the player who assisted the defense at the basket, and he hoped that the team would have such a position for him.

Originally, he wanted to talk to the coaching staff about his defensive positioning in two days.

Unexpectedly, Thibodeau discovered so quickly that his ability was enough to become a good assistant player...

After all, it was an old coach who entered the "small ball era" after 2011. His vision was indeed fierce and his ideas were not so rigid.

If Tom gets sick again this time, then he said that he would let Tom Thibodeau be the head coach, rather than letting that rigid "vampire" pick peaches!

Although Thibodeau is not a perfect head coach, his use of the main players has been criticized later! But players in this era are indeed not that expensive. Who in the league does not use the main players? There are really few who dare to pat their chests to ensure that they have never used the main players.

Even if it is Popovich, ask Tim Duncan how his knee meniscus torn in 2000!

Of course, it is best to let Tom continue to serve as the head coach. This guy is similar to the "Zen Master". He gives the players under his command very high freedom. He basically will not transform the players. Instead, he will arrange his life on the court based on the characteristics of the players. Just like Norris, if he changes any team, he will probably have let him go to the Development League long ago, but under Tom, he became the first pick in the number one position. Tom gave him "unlimited fire" at some specific times, developing his ability to disrupt wars to the fullest. Therefore, Yao Ming became more familiar with Tom after a while and was preparing to let him go to the hospital to check his body and remove hidden dangers in advance. In this way, this "meritorial coach" of the Rockets will naturally not leave.

The morning training ended at around 12:30, and Mutombo also came back at the press conference. He will participate in the Rockets' joint training in the afternoon.

"People, come together, let's talk about the starting list of this game tonight."

Before the afternoon training officially began, Tom, as usual, told Tom Thibodeau to inform the Rockets of the starting lineup tonight.

"Steve in the first position, Cartino in the second position, James in the third position, Kevin Cato in the fourth position, and... Yao!"

When Tom Thibodeau talked about the last starting position, he glanced at Yao Ming, with congratulations and congratulations in his eyes. The same goes for the others, and they all turned their heads to congratulate Yao Ming.

Francis even said directly: "The first starter in his career, play well, man!"

Yao Ming nodded, but said in his heart: Is this the arrangement of fate?

Tonight is Olajuwon's retirement ceremony and his first starter in his career. Tonight he is destined to deliver a satisfactory answer!

...

Tonight's game came as scheduled, and fans entered the court earlier than usual, and the number of posters and banners the fans carried with them was also more than usual.

There is no doubt about this situation. Tonight's Toyota Center will inevitably be a sea of ​​cheers.

"My man, put Yao on the starter and immediately, if you don't want me to block you XX with peanut butter!"

"Tom, we need to see Yao in the starting lineup, stupid donkey!"

"Yao's performance is actually putting him on the bench. What are you thinking about? Damn it!"

But after entering the court, Tom looked at some banners in the audience and couldn't be happy. The most beautiful language of the fans was everywhere, urging him to put Yao Ming in the starting position.

Fortunately, it took only a while. When the game started, they saw that Yao Ming did start and they would not "give" him like this again.

When Yao Ming entered the venue, he received huge cheers from the audience. The volume was even similar to Steve Francis. He didn't see Yao Ming in two games. They really missed Yao Ming!

There is no way, newcomers can't let go...

As the game began, Olajuwon also came to the sideline audience through the VIP channel. Huge cheers suddenly sounded. Listening to these cheers, they were even louder than those received by Yao Ming and Steve Francis.

Of course this is also normal. He is the protagonist of midfield time tonight. There are no shortage of fans who bought tickets tonight for him on the spot. Many fans came to witness his jersey hanging high above the Toyota Center.

While waved his hand to signal to the audience, Olajuwon walked to his sideline seat, with a smile on his face. The sadness of last night was gone.

When Francis and others saw him coming, they also ran to hug him. Now there were naturally bursts of cheers, especially when Yao Ming and Olajuwon hugged each other, the cheers in the audience could be described as "deafening".

When he arrived, he patted Yao Ming on the shoulder.

"Come on, man."

Maybe because he said something from his heart to Yao Ming last night, now Olajuwang is more friendly to Yao Ming.

The cameras next to them were also taking photos of them "click" all the way.
Chapter completed!